Association of risk factors with severe malnutrition in chilren under five years of age

Objectives: to determine the association of risk factors with severe malnutrition in children under five years of age. material and methods: the study was carried out in paeds unit of khyber teaching hospital,peshawar from january 2005 to december 2005. children less than five years old with severe malnutrition were included in the study. risk factors (social and medical) in these children were documented on a separate printed proforma and their association with severe malnutrition was determined. results: one hundred and twenty five children with severe malnutrition both male and female were included in the study population. their age range was from two months to sixty months. among the social risk factors the commonest association was between maternal incompetency and severe malnutrition (72%) while the least common association was between drug addiction and working mother within the family (6%). among the medical risk factors having strong association with severe malnutrition were recurrent respiratory tract infections (80%),chronic diarrhea (79%) followed by mixed feeding practices (62%) and lactation failure (54%). least significant association was found between severe malnutrition and infections like whooping cough (7%) and tuberculosis (3%). conclusion: multiple risk factors like social/medical are commonly associated with severe malnutrition in children below five years of age. © 2008 khyber medical college peshawar.